Carbon Dioxide Absorption using Novel Porous Polysulfone Membrane in Flat Sheet Membrane Contactor: Performance Evaluation and Mass Transfer Study

In this study, the performance of gas-liquid membrane contactor for CO2 capture was investigatedusing a novel polysulfone (PSF) flat membrane prepared via non-solvent phase inversion method.Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) was used as an additive in the dope solution of PSF membranes.Morphological structure analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) demonstrated that PVPmodifiedpolysulfone membrane has a finger-like structure, but the other membrane has a sponge-likestructure. Also, characterization results through atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed that the porosityand surface roughness of the PSF membrane increased with addition of PVP to the dope solution.Evaluation of mass transfer resistance displayed that the resistance of PVP-modified PSF membrane islower than that of the other membrane and addition of PVP to the dope solution significantly improvedCO2 absorption flux up to 2.7 and 1.8 times of absorption fluxes of PSF membrane without PVP andcommercial PVDF, respectively.